Some hopes and dreams for Baltimore's new year

We're off and running in a new year. It's a time for dreams and hopes.

Let's hope we stop seeing the term drug market when it refers to what used to be a neighborhood street corner.

On the other hand, let's hope we do see more food markets as friendly as the Hollins Market in Southwest Baltimore.

Let's have more desserts like Marconi's chocolate sauce on vanilla ice cream.

Let's bring back high hair. It's getting pretty scarce in East Baltimore, Northeast Baltimore and Parkville.

Let's have more restaurants like Donna's at Charles and Madison.

Let's have more streets become as neighborhood friendly as Allegheny Avenue in downtown Towson.

Let's have fewer parking garages like the one in Towsontown Center.

Let's have more cakes, buns and donuts from the Woodlea Bakery.

Let's hope that East Baltimore's subway extension is finally finished and the Jonestown neighborhood stops looking like a showroom for heavy equipment.

Let's hope the city's public schools are as clean and well maintained as the Central Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Let's hear it for short sermons.

Let's have more neighborhood gathering spots like Pete's Grill in Waverly.

Let's try ice skating at the rink at the foot of Federal Hill.

Let's have fewer steel plates on streets.

Let's have a philanthropist who declines to have his or her name in large letters installed on a donation.

Let's wish that local museums would stop chasing down "blockbuster" exhibits and think seriously about their own permanent collections.

Let's have a cab driver who doesn't ask directions to well-known intersections such as Eastern Avenue and Conkling Street.

Let's stick with the Morris Mechanic Theatre and forget about building a larger playhouse. Who needs to sit three blocks away from the stage and view the actors with binoculars just so greedy producers can sell more tickets per performance?

Let's have more funny musical comedies like Todd Pearthree's production of "The Boys from Syracuse" at the Spotlighter's Theatre.

Let's reduce the voltage in the ugly lighting atop the roof tower in the HarborView condo.

Let's keep up Druid Hill Park better. Does the park really have to look like an obstacle course of Jersey barriers?

Let's have more express MARC trains to and from Washington.

Let's suggest the contractor finish the Pennsylvania Station's new parking garage-plaza in record time. Charles Street is a dangerous mess.

Let's have someone invent a paint that sticks properly to Baltimore's thousands of metal cornices.